Test investigation requested: Two members of Florida school districts and the Florida Coalition of School Board Members are calling for an investigation of significant decreases in the number of students from Duval, Manatee and Polk counties who took the state's civics end-of-course exams. Polk had 3,736 fewer 7th-grade students take the exam this year, Duval 2,910 and Manatee almost 1,000, and all three districts had significantly higher pass rates. Sarasota board member Bridget Ziegler, Duval board member Scott Shine want the state to hold up the release of school grades until the issue is investigated. Manatee County Superintendent Diana Greene says her district simply allowed 7th-graders who struggle with reading to delay taking the test until 8th grade, as the state permits districts to do. “Don’t try to act like we did something wrong,” says Greene. Duval school officials also deny any impropriety. Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Florida Times-Union. Florida Politics. WJCT.

Weighting for grades: By state law, end-of-course exams must constitute 30 percent of a student's final course grade. But different districts apply the law in different ways, and now Levy County Superintendent Jeff Edison is pressing state officials to specifically define what constitutes 30 percent of a student's final course grade. "What we would like to be able to do is get the [lawmakers] to allow the Department of Education to have the rule-making authority to create a consistent definition of what 30 percent is," says Edison. "Give us a uniform way of applying it. It doesn't matter to us [what it is]. We just want it the same." Gradebook. (more…)